Poet shares political views, current events and informative poetry information for students.

Friday, May 18, 2012

American Economy Needs the Biggest Loser!

Folks the politicians are at it again saying things like, “We
all need to pay the price for recovery,” or “Everyone needs to have skin in the
game.” Both parties seem to be the same two-headed snake I’ve written about
previously. I see no imagination just cut social programs to the bone and tax
citizens until they're bled dry. In truth the economy shouldn’t be compared to
lemmings jumping off a cliff of debt. Don’t let them scare you! The economic
growth and wealth for some over the last 12 years has been great. Our gross
domestic product increased while our middle class and jobs shrank. Now, those
same people want the rest of us whose jobs they sent overseas, and whose wages
have flat lined or went down to get skin in the game because entitlement
programs we're forced to pay into are going to cost too much.

The truth is the American economy, not Americans, has become
fat and lazy. It doesn’t want to work anymore or grow. Forget about walking,
the muscles of our economy haven’t been used for anything except shoveling food
into the mouth of corporate profits and the wealthiest 1%. The corporations are
sitting on 2 ½ trillion dollars of capital fat ass-ets. No matter how much they want to
spin it, corporations are not people. They are businesses ran by people. They
are a necessary muscle in creation of jobs and vital to a healthy economy. The
problem is they aren’t working out or exercising leaving those bloated fat
cells which could be used as fuel for the economic muscle growth to atrophy.

Our politicians need to think of creative ways to become like Jillian Michaels
to inspire corporations to get off their butts and start burning that fat. Our
politicians are going to have to appeal to the people running the corporations
because companies don’t think for themselves. Their officers and boards of
directors make the decisions so quit calling corporations people and get
creative. Our government needs to find out what those boards of directors need
to get them to use corporate capital for job creation and economic growth. If
the find the right dietary carrot, you’ll see energy jump back into the economy
as well as those companies. Maybe cut back on regulations which wouldn’t hurt
the public health or environment? Maybe tax credits linked to job creation in
our country versus overseas? If carrots don’t work then pull out the stick to
prod them, but get them off their fat capital butts.

However, the corporations aren’t the only muscles not
working correctly in the current body economic. Our governments at all levels, federal,
state and local, need to revise the way they burn fat, too. On the Biggest
Loser they call it retraining the muscles to work properly. Right now, our governments’
budgets have turned into bloated fat cells. The answer is not eating more tax sweets
paid for by the citizenry, or drinking their tax calories by cutting services
to the people paying their salaries. I truly believe the tax and spend
philosophy is going to make our schools, police departments, firehouses and
every other government agency go blind or lose their feet and legs to overweight
budget diabetes.

For example, almost all taxpayer funded entities spend every
dime they get every year so they won’t have their budgets reduced the following
year. Why? If muscles don’t burn the calories our bodies take in then it goes
to fat or into the toilet as waste. We have to change this mentality. We
shouldn’t punish agencies for reducing waste by cutting their budgets. We
should let them have rainy day funds so we don’t need to increase taxes every
year to increase budgets. Nothing irritates taxpayers more than seeing frivolous
spending followed by a tax increase. I was privy to this at a local school.
They found they had a $100,000.00 left in their budget, and they literally
searched for ways to spend the money so their budget wouldn’t be reduced the
next year. Now imagine my surprise when I received a notice that my property
taxes were increasing automatically because the school, firehouse, police
department, library and mental health departments were all increasing their
budgets by the amount allowed by law without a public vote. (Thanks President
Bush for tax increases without public discussion or vote.)

Admittedly, the volunteer firehouse is no better. They had a
small budget before they convinced the local citizens to publicly fund them. It
seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Before they got a taste of deep
fried taxes, they would go door to door asking for donations, and their
budgetary needs were one of their biggest talking points. If just 1 out of 10
households in their service area donated just $20.00 then they would have
enough to cover their financial needs. Part of the reason people voted to put
the volunteer firehouse on the public payroll with their tax dollars was the
expectation the taxes wouldn’t be that high. Surely, if everyone is now
contributing rather than 1 in 10, the costs should be minimal. My taxes increased
$240.00 that year for the firehouse alone. All of a sudden $20.00 from 1 in 10
households wasn’t enough. My yearly contribution increased 1200% because it was
no longer a gift. It was a requirement, and their budgetary needs immediately
started to grow automatically year after year.

However, the muscle steroid abuse award goes to the police
department. I love good cops and have many family members who serve or have
served in blue. I’m not fond of police who abuse their positions in our society,
and it applies to the top dogs. I understand the need for a new police cruiser
or two over time. I don’t understand why they have to be sports cars, get
detailed racing stripes or be equipped with spinning hubcaps. Now, I wasn’t
privy to their budget needs or how much money they needed to spend to keep from
having reductions, but the public can see those spinning hubcaps every time the
cruiser goes down the road. I had a friend tell me he thought the officers might
have paid for the hubcaps out-of-pocket. I’m glad my tax dollars didn’t pay for
them if that is the case, but I still don’t know it as a fact. Regardless, I
think it is inappropriate. If I don’t like the thought of my tax dollars paying
for spinning hubcaps on police cruisers then I’m sure others are thinking the
same thing.

Maybe a bonus system based on budgetary discipline would be
in order? As long as services are reduced, we could allow government agencies
to take 10% off any surplus and pay it to their workers as a bonus while
sticking the rest in a savings account for future needs. Don’t reduce their
budget, but don’t increase it either. It gives enough incentive to work out for
a payoff. After some time passes, you can reduce the taxpayer burden by
interest generated by the rainy day funds. If all levels of government
functioned this way, we might see ridiculous savings in operating budgets and
large savings accounts instead. My guess is you’d see some happy public
servants with some nice bonus checks, also.

Finally, we have a mega-rich 1% in our country that holds
most of the wealth. Over the last 10 years they’ve seen their wealth grow in
ridiculous, some might say obscene, proportions compared to the struggles of
the rest of the 99% of Americans. Congress needs to find incentives for them as
well. True they pay large tax bills, but they are the main beneficiary of the
tax breaks over the last 10 years to the point our national debt has increased unnecessarily
to keep giving them a little extra income. Our excuse to pile on the debt to
keep giving them the extended tax break was they create jobs. If it were
working then we wouldn’t currently have this double chin and gut hanging over
our knees in debt fat. I say it is easy to fix. If they can prove job creation
in proportion to their tax breaks, let them keep their individual tax breaks,
and if they can’t then take away their tax breaks on an individual basis. If
what the Republicans say is true, we won’t penalize or hurt the job creators in
this manner, and they no longer have an excuse to withhold votes needed for the
other 99% of Americans to satisfy the needs of 1%. I have a sneaky suspicion
the 1% will suddenly start creating jobs or at least start putting a little more
of their skin back in the game. I’m not against cutting their taxes again. If
we manage to get fit economically, out of debt and see a budget surplus again,
we should operate on the notion we will decrease Americans' taxes in proportion to interest generated off government savings accounts. It might be sometime before we get there, but it will be worth it.

Currently, our economy is suffering from our various parts
not working correctly. Our corporations and mega-rich 1% know you have to spend
money to make money, but they sit on record capital and wealth. Our economy is suffocating
from an over conservative attitude focused on slashing budgets, debt ceilings
and tax rates. While it is true all levels of our government need to reform the
way they operate, the aforementioned businesses and 1% need to loosen up, quit
sitting on that fat capital and work out.

2 comments:

Frank, thanks for posting your true gut feelings. You're so right. My stomach buckles when I see so many poor, plus now "average," people struggling just to keep afloat in this vicious sea of life while there are many who have so much money that if they can pool their assets together could stamp out poverty, fund social & medical programs many need... in short, help to make this tilted world spin a bit smoother.

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About Me

An army brat, Frank started life a fat, bald baby resembling Buddha, and Okinawan women rubbed his belly for good luck. After his father’s retirement, they returned to Kentucky where he graduated from Campbell County High School an honor student. Next, he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Northern Kentucky University. Author of two short story collections, Raven Wings and 13 more Twisted Tales and Star Child and 13 More Twisted Tales, he’s, also, a published and recorded poet. He runs a blog called The Political Poet which offers free information about poems and writing poetry at the same time it encourages political action. The blog found at http://frankandpoe.blogspot.com/ features a free annual poetry contest attracting some of the top poets in the country. Frank boasts over 15 years experience as a journalist. He volunteered as a track and football coach for 7 years at the local public high scool where he was a substitute teacher. Almost being killed by Multiple Sclerosis in 1997, a survivor, he battled back from bed ridden, wheelchair, and walker to cane. He’s married with 3 children and 4 grand children.

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Please take a moment to check out the advertisements. I'm proud to be a free information web site. The advertisers support the web site.For your information, I have battled Multiple Sclerosis for over 13 years. Ten percent of any royalties I earn from my book, Raven Wings and 13 More Twisted Tales, are going to charities. Six percent are going specifically to MS charities. I know the economy is bad right now, and donations to charities are down. I ask everyone to remember their favorite charities in these times when they need donations the most.